


Partnership

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Yakov arrives at Lilia's apartment. Lilia has some misgivings, but keeps them to herself. She's confident they can find a new way to work together. This is just the beginning.
Relationships: Lilia Baranovskaya & Yakov Feltsman
Kudos: 8
Collections: Rare Ships!!! on BINGO 2020





	Partnership

Yakov brought his belongings around late in the evening, after Lilia had sent Yuri to bed. A small suitcase, as if he didn’t intend to stay long. Or as if he intended to do a lot of laundry.

His eyes darted around the apartment. He’d visited once or twice before; she’d invited him to make up the numbers at dinner parties, or simply for old times’ sake: sometimes it was extremely politic to be on good terms with one’s ex-husband, and sometimes one needed to talk in private. But it was one thing to invite him here for a few hours, and another thing entirely to ask him to move in.

‘I’ll show you your room.’ She did not look back to see if he was following her. ‘You and Yuri will share this bathroom, on the right.’ She opened the door to the bedroom. ‘I’ve cleared the left-hand wardrobe for you.’

He took a step into the room, turned back to face her, and nodded, half-smiling. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you.’

She did not respond to the ironical note in his voice. ‘I’ll leave you to unpack.’

Then she went to the kitchen and removed a bottle of vodka from the freezer. She poured herself a glass and took it through to the sitting room.

Lilia was briefly tempted to wonder what had possessed her, but she considered regrets a sign of weakness. Besides, she wasn’t worried. They’d always got on best when they had a project to work on together: their first apartment had kept them occupied for years, saving for the paint and the fabric, swapping and wheedling and bribing until they could claim the artworks they’d set their hearts on. Then there had been Yakov’s _Sabre Dance_ free skate: they’d put their souls into that, and deserved every medal it had brought him. After that, there was another, bigger apartment...

They had finally fallen apart when there was nothing left to concentrate on but each other. It was the mismatch when Yakov had stopped skating that had finished their relationship. It shouldn’t have made that much of a difference – he had moved on to coaching very swiftly, and his working days at the rink were as long as they’d ever been when he’d been on centre ice rather than at the side. But he had suddenly had no need to strive to improve himself, and she had found herself growing increasingly irritated with his lack of interest in his own appearance, his reluctance to take any exercise, his increasing disregard for social niceties. _She_ had been putting the effort in; she would never have the patience to tolerate someone who did not.

And Yakov knew that. Yakov had always known her well – too well for them to have worked for long as a married couple. Lilia had always felt it necessary to cultivate an air of mystery, had never been quite comfortable letting anyone come close enough to see the threads of grey in her coronet of hair, the bunions on her long-serving, long-suffering feet. Even she, the most devoted acolyte of beauty, couldn’t be worthy of her god all the time. Yakov hadn’t minded. She had. He knew that too, damn him.

The end of her own performing career had been far less traumatic. She’d taken her bow, accepted the armfuls of bouquets, and spent six weeks at her house in Sestroretsk. She’d returned to the city no less of a legend. But this time she was a legend with time on her hands.

Yakov had suggested once before that she help him with coaching one of his skaters. She couldn’t remember which one it had been, now. Not Victor Nikiforov. At any rate, she had rejected the idea with more than her usual brusqueness. And, she thought now, she had been right to do so. She had still been performing then; even if she’d had the time, she wouldn’t have had the emotional energy.

This would be different. Both she and Yakov had the capacity to concentrate on this project. And the boy was something special. Or, rather, he had the potential to be, if only he would work as hard as he’d promised.

A soft cough. She glanced up. Yakov was standing in the doorway, completely familiar and utterly out of place. He didn’t come any further, which irritated her; but had he been presumptuous enough to enter the room she’d have been irritated, too. She remembered him, younger and thinner and angrier, his dark hair falling forward into his face, leaning against the kitchen door in their old flat, ranting – to her, not at her. Why? Something about Pavel, or the Federation. She couldn’t remember, now.

She blinked, and the picture cleared. There were no memories here. This was her home, and hers only. There was, as she had said, plenty of space. She could have the grace to invite Yakov back in, to work with him in a new way, on a new project. Couldn’t she?

If that was going to be true, there was only one thing that she could possibly do. She nodded him into the room; raised her eyebrows; raised her glass. ‘Drink?’


End file.
